Sex, Power and Marketing Jell-O to Monkeys

Adam Smith, famed 18th century economist and author of The Wealth of Nations, asserted that the practice of exchanging goods and services for money was an exclusively human thing to do. ”Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog,” Smith wrote. Then about five years ago, long after Smiths death, Yale researchers, including a psychologist Laurie Santos, working with capuchin monkeys proved the venerable Mr. Smith wrong. Without too much provocation, Yale researchers were able to teach the capuchin monkeys a most basic system of economics and soon the monkeys were using a fake form of currency to buy things like marshmallows, Jell-O and grapes. The capuchin monkeys become so adept at the particulars of a closed economic system that they, being primates obsessed with food and sex, soon found a way to electively pay one ...